Chile-based Cementos Melón has officially inaugurated its new grinding unit about 8.5km north of Punta Arenas in the country’s southern Magallanes region.

The new 0.25Mta plant represents an investment of US$45m and is expected to produce 80,000t of cement in its first year as it ramps up capacity.

At the inauguration, Cementos Melón General Manager, Jorge Eugenín, said: “For us Magallanes has always been an interesting market, its consumption is comparable to cities in developed countries, and therefore we see a good future in the area, especially now with the green hydrogen project. In general, cement consumption is associated with the level of development of the different countries and cities, and in that sense Punta Arenas today has more than 550kg per inhabitant/year, which is compared to European countries; Chile, on the contrary, has 280 on average. This means that Punta Arenas is almost twice as large, and you see that when you visit the city, many infrastructures are of high quality and the roads are made to last 100 years.”